


International Relations

by nsmorig



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: But in a happy way? No angst here, Cultural Differences, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Elaborate Descriptions of Gemstone Carving, Elf Culture & Customs, Fluff, Getting Together, Gift Giving, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-10-19 23:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17611172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nsmorig/pseuds/nsmorig
Summary: An oval the size of his palm, the stone was worn smooth and flat by time like sea-glass. Dark veins grew like narrow tree-trunks through the green crystal,  bordered by what looked almost like petrified wood. It was strange to find such a thing in Aglarond, where the gems were different. It looked almost like the Forest of Fangorn--the stone shone with a marvellous iridescent sheen, and it looked to be the pale sun in the afternoon filtering through the leaves.He realised, all of a sudden, that there was some sort of hollow ache behind his sternum.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roselightfairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [Roselightfairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy) in the [2000GigolasFics](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/2000GigolasFics) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Get-together set several years post-war, when both Gimli and Legolas have already set up their respective settlements in Aglarond and Ithilien.

The day had been spent in a haze of blue-paper and rulers and arguing with surveyors and praising architects, and his head had filled to the brim with crystals and facets and irrigation systems. It was in this blurred, work-tired state that Gimli had seen a stone of labradorite and thought at once of Legolas. He picked it up without a thought and put it in his pocket.

 

It had stayed there all through the long evening and into the morning, as Gimli quite forgotten to go bed. He found it again the following evening, as he found his way back to his bedroom.

 

An oval the size of his palm, the stone was worn smooth and flat by time like sea-glass. Dark veins grew like narrow tree-trunks through the green crystal, and it was bordered by what looked almost like petrified wood. It was very strange, to find such a thing in Aglarond, where the gems were different. It looked almost like the Forest of Fangorn--the stone shone with a marvellous iridescent sheen, and it looked to be the pale sun in the afternoon filtering through the leaves.

 

He realised, all of a sudden, that there was some sort of hollow ache behind his sternum. It felt like the loneliness that had taken him, sometimes, when he had first left his family, but his siblings slept down the hall and his father and mother had made the long journey from Erebor to see the rebuilding and he was not alone here.

 

He thought on this as the firelight dimmed, and watched as the stone seemed to shift and change, like the sun going down over the forest. It struck him then, swift as an arrow, how he was missing Legolas.

 

He had expected some of it-- he had left friends before, though none so close or dear, and had expected that same emptiness of evening and the way that he had turned and expected to see him through the day. That, he had forseen, but he had not anticipated the bone-deep ache that held him now and would not leave.

 

Perhaps, he thought in the privacy of his bed, perhaps his . . . Partiality . . . Was not as shallow as he had thought. A little crush, he had long thought it, a childish infatuation over a deep and honest friendship, but it had not faded. When he thought on their separation, there it was, the pain in his chest, the worry and the heartache, and then when he thought of Legolas himself there was the warmth that he had become accustomed to on their journey together. He brought a hand to his face, and it was hot with blood.

 

"I see," he said into the darkness, and smiled.

 

He was separated from him now, but he would not be forever, and any love, returned or not, is a thing to be treasured. He pushed the longing aside, and let himself sink into the sweetness of it, tender and fragile and beautiful.

 

Though it is surely some time past midnight, the Halls cold and dark, he pulled himself to his desk, and began to draft a design before the siren-call of sleep drew him back to his dreams.

 

//

 

In the morning, he looked over the designs again, smiling to himself as he made his way down the stairs. It was visible even then, scaffoldings reaching towards the ceiling and dust on every surface, the first shadows of the architecture in the Great Hall. He thought on the memory of the wide heart of Khazad-Dum and how beautiful it had been, even in the dark with the orcs climbing the pillars and the fire streaming through the air.

 

Aglarond would be more beautiful. Aglarond would be _safe,_ even if he had to spend the rest of his days keeping it so.

 

Like a spectre, his sister materialised out of a dark corridor, and in respect for the years it had taken her to learn to walk silently he obligingly pretended that he hadn't noticed her approach.

 

They sniped back and forth for several minutes, speaking of ordinary things and how Camlin was terrorising her apprentices and how Gimli's shirt was rumpled and his hair in disarray, and in the process he was carefully informed of many useful things that that could not be said out loud. This, he has learned, is a great deal of the work involved in running the settlement.

 

"Camlin, you have been speaking with new tradesfolk," he said at last, when his thoughts turned back to his plans, "Are there any sculptors of plagiocase crystals?"

 

"Aye, nadad, you."

 

He laughed a little, quietly. "Whoever told you that jade was plagiocase, or a crystal, ought to apologise."

 

"Do not mock me,  _sir_ ," she said, with amused vitriol, "You know as little about prayer as I do about gemstones. What are you looking for?"

 

"A relief or cameo shaper of stones with high schillerism and moderate Mohr's Indexes. One with a good knowledge of adularescence."

 

"You invent words to torment me."

 

"Perhaps," he said with a smile, though he had not. "Feldspars?"

 

"That, at least, is a word of certain provenance that I know you have not glued together from syllables for your own benefit. I will ask."

 

His duties then called him away, and once again he was asked to settle disputes and not insult anyone's pride too greivously in the process, which was a challenge enough to keep him well entertained. Through the day, though, in the rare moments when his thoughts were his own, he found himself thinking of sand-papers and fine dremels, and how he would file such narrow cuts as he intended smooth, and of whether he could inlay gold . . .

 

//

 

  
_My dear friend,_

 

_I write to you from the new anteroom, which we finished constructing this morning; it is still deep in stone-dust, but at last there is a desk, and a window. You have quite ruined me for the caverns, for after all our time on the surface I now find that if I do not see the sun I begin to quite lose track of the time, which is a disadvantage indeed here._

 

_I have included several drawings of the work that has been done, and a copy of the original blueprints for the gardens. We have looked into your suggestions-- the irrigation particularly we are developing very well-- and to my eternal amusement some of the craftspeople refused to believe that they were of your design. You will have to keep a watch on where you put them, because I will inevitably lose my copy of the blueprints, which will cause some trouble._

 

_My siblings have arrived, and though I would rather that you never meet-- for you would surely band together in dispelling the illusion that I am a dignified Dwarf-- they are both most eager to meet you. In fact, in perhaps a month the first phase of construction should be all but done, and I would be able to tear myself away from my duties here to visit you in Ithilien as we had planned . . ._

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cultural differences and big sappy metaphors

This is how it is for the Sylvan Elves:

 

In the year 2167 of the Third Age, Lythienne of the Bright Blade, who was the finest of the Greenwood's archers, went into seclusion for almost a year. When she left, fingers stained with ink and with a long hot-metal burn across her right arm, she was carrying a gift. She brought it to Thranduil who was King of those halls and gave to him a set of daggers. Their leaflike blades were long and pale, near-perfect in form and function, beautiful in their simplicity.

 

He took them graciously, for he was a man well-accustomed to receiving fine gifts, and she was a close friend, and apart from the masterwork quality, nothing about this was remarkable. He thanked her profusely, and noted her skill, and she smiled and said "They are the finest things that I have ever made."

 

He was quiet, then, and soon they were married. There are many ways for an Elf to show such a sentiment, and the old ways are falling out of favour now, but the Sylvan Elves, like everyone else, build rituals to make it easier to bare one's soul before another. It is the oldest and grandest of them to present another with the best and most beautiful work of one's hands, and to name it such.

 

It is not said aloud, but in the Greenwood they understand.

 

//

 

The delegation had the rudeness to arrive while Gimli was still up to his beard in meetings, and so when he was able to wrest himself free with the threat of setting up a committee the Ithilien elves had been shown to their quarters already. He was jogging over the to the wing with as much dignity as he could muster without loosing his breath when he saw Legolas, not in his quarters but leaning up against a pillar in the Open Halls, still in his travelling cloak. Gimli stopped on the bridge over the hall, and found that he had lost his breath after all.

 

Legolas looked up, and, beaming, pushed his hair out of his face and waved; Gimli smiled back, and with a series of obscure gestures attempted to communicate that he was coming down to the hall. Legolas, in return, made some wide gestures that were just as unintelligible, but he was grinning still, and Gimli couldn't muster any annoyance at the Elves for not having a sensible system like Inglishmek.

 

"Welcome back!" he shouted, as soon as he was in earshot, taking the steps many at a time, but though Legolas was threading through the crowd with his usual enthusiasm, for some reason he stayed his usual exuberant affection and did not sweep Gimli into a hug.

 

Instead, he knelt delicately, and rested his hands on Gimli's shoulders with something resembling hesitance, head tilted to the side.

 

"I find it much changed since my last visit. You, also."

 

"The works have been extensive—I am very proud—but I am not so different. It has not been so long."

 

"Too long!" There, at last was the hug, forceful and familiar. He found he agreed rather more than he had expected.

 

"You are changed, too, you know," he murmured into Legolas' shoulder, hoping it would conceal how he was almost choked up.

 

"What? How so?"

 

"You have shrunk."

 

Legolas drew back with an expression of outrage, standing straight as if to prove that he hadn't. "Not so! Why do you say so—"

 

"But the last time you were here, my friend, did you not have to stoop to protect your head from the ceiling?"

 

"I did."

 

"And now you stand straight. Hence, you have shrunk."

 

"You have raised the ceilings! You— you mock me, of course. I see."

 

"I do. But are my works here not impressive?"

 

Legolas's face softened he looked up at the vaulted ceilings, and it was suddenly very important that he agree.

 

"They are. They are indeed. This is— They would not recognise it, would they? But it is still remarkably like the hall at Moria."

 

Gimli swallowed. "Underneath the Orcs, it was beautiful. I wished to . . . Well, to pay tribute, I suppose."

 

"But this is brighter, I think. There is more light to it."

 

"Aye— a function of the stone used for the pillars, which is almost translucent, like a very strong quartz, and I put in skylights, and mirrors sometimes, to bring the sun inside . . ."

 

He spoke of stone and sunlight for far too long, because Legolas had the trick of asking the interesting questions, of assuring him that someone was listening to him. They moved through the city together, and under Legolas' gaze it turned from hewn stone back to the dreams he had once had, the ghosts of grand architecture in his head shining in the torchlight again.

 

It was like coming home again, in some delicate way that he couldn't quite place.

 

They found their way, slowly, meandering and frequently finding themselves lost, to Gimli's quarters, his new anteroom with the prized south-facing window, and as the evening set golden over the valley outside they sat on the window-seat and talked of things of little importance that must none-the-less be discussed.

 

The conversation slowed, quite naturally, into a pleasant peace as the sun grew large and blurred outside, trees dark against the sky. Red leaves glowed like rubies as the shadow of the rain evaporated. Legolas looked out over it, turning a cup of hot tea in his hands, in thought. Pleasant thoughts, Gimli hoped, pretending that he was also watching the view.

 

"I think of you more than you might suppose."

 

Before Gimli could respond to that statement— which had hit him quite out of left field like a vaguely pink florally-scented Orc ambush— Legolas continued, looking down at his hands with uncharacteristic reticence, his hair falling around his face.

 

"I have had very many close friends, you know," he said softly, as though confessing to something awful, "But not for very long. For some time I am very dear to someone and they are very dear to me, and then the circumstances that pushed us together are over and so, slowly, trailing away for all that I might fight it, is the friendship. I have never had the skill at holding on to people.

 

"I had thought, though I dreaded it, that it would be the same with you, and with the rest of the Fellowship— though I had feared growing away from you the most. But you are unlike the friends that I have had before, I think. When you came with me to Fangorn I was quite beside myself, though I didn't say it, and when you wrote to me faithfully while I was in Ithilien— well. I find you surprise me at every turn."

 

Gimli took a deep breath, and then another, and found that while he was busy thinking of things to say his hand had found Legolas' and was speaking for him.

 

Was there any point in risking this, he wondered absently, in the full knowledge that his mind was already made; was there sense in staking his heart out on a hope when he was already so happy with the situation exactly as it was?

 

No. No, there wasn't. He was content, here. More so than he could recall being for some time.

 

//

 

Legolas watched a single leaf fall to the ground from behind glass, the sun warm on his skin, and pretended that he himself was warmed by that and not by Gimli's hand on his own. His father had spoken of the peace of Valinor, how it was supposed to feel like one was an overflowing chalice of something warm and honeyed, and now he felt as though he might understand some of that— and then he pushed all thoughts of Valinor aside, hard though it was, and let himself live in the present and the here.

 

No, he would not cast this aside for the Blessed Lands, not on any persuasion.

 

Gimli had remarkable hands, broad and calloused and steady, made for delicate work though they might look otherwise. Like the rest of him, perhaps.

 

Gimli smiled at him—and he did smile with a focus, as though if the rest of the world was mist he would still smile at Legolas alone— and said, almost in a rush as though he were nervous, "You mentioned Fangorn—I was thinking of it, recently, and I have something for you, if you would like to see it."

 

"Well, of course, before the light is gone, what is it?"

 

"Perhaps it'd better wait until tomorrow, if you are so insistent on the light!"

 

"I am curious, now, you will not be rid of me until I know. I shall feel it out with my hands, if you stall until the sun sets."

 

"Fear not, fear not, I jest . . ." He stood, and with a sigh of some emotion Legolas did not know he opened a box on his desk. He drew out what looked from a distance to be a river-smooth rock until a stray beam of light bent through the glass and shattered itself upon it, breaking into a captured rainbow in greens and blues and golds.

 

Legolas felt his own intake of breath before he commanded it from his body, and Gimli beamed up at him in poorly concealed smugness. He took it with the sort of care he had only previously given to fragile living things, though it was solid and cold against his hand, the underside smooth. The upper side, though—he raised it to the window to see better how it shifted in the golden light—was like a moment captured. The veins in the rock had been outlined and raised, like tree-trunks, and clouds of leaves seemed to drift in a non-existent wind. There he was, carved into the image, his silhouette picked out in gold-leaf gilding, with Gimli beside him in copper.

 

It was . . . He was torn between marvelling at the beauty of it as an image, and marvelling at the sheer skill of the carving, and at how perfectly it captured the early morning in Fangorn, the whole canopy translucent and glowing. He could not have painted it if he were the finest artist of the Age, but the stone had it brighter and sharper than memory.

 

"Shall I take it that you like it, then?"

 

Legolas blinked at him for a moment, the question far too small for the thing just now coming into bloom that had taken root in his chest.

 

"You might say that, yes," he said, and pretended that he was convincing. "How was it made?"

 

A branch in the foreground was no thicker than a ridge of his finger-print, and the stone was crystalline; he had learned enough to know it wouldn't have been simple to carve. A masterpiece, a museum-piece, perhaps.

 

"Well," Gimli started, relief plain in his voice, "I found the stone by chance, and the relief came fairly easily, working from life— it's these vertical inclusions that make the pattern possible, you see—"

 

"You made this?"

 

Gimli blinked, and laughed gently. "I did. Usually I work in jade, of course, so I had to learn rather a lot."

 

"It is a masterpiece." His voice was quieter than conversation usually required, and unsteady.

 

"Aye, perhaps," said Gimli. He sat beside Legolas again, and his unbound hair fell over his eyes. "I think it might be the finest thing I've ever made."

 

Legolas' heart beat inside his chest like a caged bird.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually write in the past tense, so if anything comes across a little oddly, that might be why!
> 
> Is Gimli totally talking out of his ass about gemstones? Yes. Does Camlin know that? Yes. Is that entirely because I don't know fuck-all about geology? Yes.


End file.
